Lawmakers from several Turkish political parties have jointly called on the government to establish direct transport links between Turkey and Abkhazia and to recognize Abkhaz passports as valid travel documents. According to the Turkish newspaper Jineps Gazetesi, this is the first time such demands have been publicly voiced at the interparty parliamentary level.
The Strong Armenia party, affiliated with Russian oligarch Samvel Karapetyan, sent a request to the Central Electoral Commission demanding the annulment of the Armenian parliamentary election results.
Earlier, another opposition bloc, Armenia, led by former President Robert Kocharyan, also announced plans to file a complaint with the Constitutional Court against the vote results.
In the parliamentary elections on June 7, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's Civil Contract party received 49.81% of the vote, declared victory, and was granted the right to form the government. Karapetyan's bloc came in second with 23.29% support, while Robert Kocharyan's party received 9.9%.
Another opposition political force, Prosperous Armenia, received 3.9% of the vote, but failed to pass the electoral threshold. Party leader Gagik Tsarukyan announced that he was beginning consultations with other opposition forces following the annulment of election results at two polling stations.
The opposition's demand followed a sharp reaction from Moscow. The Russian Foreign Ministry effectively accused the Armenian authorities of "repression" and "suppression" of democratic freedoms, which occurred immediately after the defeat of pro-Russian political forces in the elections. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova stated that the entire election campaign and the voting process itself took place "under conditions of severe repression" against opposition parties and their supporters. Moscow was particularly outraged, according to Zakharova, by the alleged targeting of forces advocating for close allied relations with Russia, Armenia's active participation in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and opposition to rapprochement with the European Union.